Liz Nealon

PROFESSIONAL BIO: Prior to working in publishing, Liz Nealon was an award-winning executive producer and media industry leader who played an integral role in shaping the indelible youth brands Sesame Street, Kidz Bop, and MTV. She served as Worldwide Creative Director for Sesame Street and traveled the world as SVP of MTV International, launching channels in Europe, Brazil, Japan, and Australia.

I am the President and Founder of Great Dog Literary, where I represent both adult and children’s books, largely non-fiction.

Not surprisingly, given my many years working in television and interactive media, I am drawn to illustrated books, for both children and adults. My tastes skew strongly to non-fiction and my instincts are decidedly commercial, so I’m always looking for just the right mix of pop appeal plus challenging, original intellectual content. I like nothing more than packaging serious non-fiction in an alternative, surprising frame. I am more interested in thought-provoking than provocative, though I’ve been known to represent some deeply edgy content.

Across all of the media in which I have worked, I have been committed to seeking out and amplifying diverse creative voices, starting with recruiting, mentoring, and supporting a diverse staff, and then empowering that team to source and develop breakthrough content.

Specific genres I’m looking for:

ADULT NON-FICTION: Pop Culture, Illustrated Memoir, Art/Illustrated books, Graphic Memoirs, Current Affairs/Fresh Takes, Tarot, Spiritual/Inspirational.

ADULT FICTION: Literary fiction, Thriller, Graphic Novels, Poetry (very selective, underrepresented voices)

CHILDREN’S NON-FICTION: Science & Nature, Biography, Graphic Novel.

CHILDREN’S FICTION: Author/Illustrators only for Picture Books. Illustrated Middle Grade. I love informational fiction, novels-in-verse, and graphic novels.

I do NOT agent: SciFi, Fantasy, Horror.

Some of the current and forthcoming titles from my clients include…

• Diane deGroat’s The Adventures of Robo-Kid (Neal Porter Books, 2022), a picture book/graphic novel hybrid that is a Jr. Library Guild Gold Standard Selection.
• Crystal Simone Smith’s Dark Testament (Holt, 2023), a volume of YA erasure poetry drawn from text “found” in the George Saunders’s novel Lincoln in the Bardo which connects the agonized voices haunting Lincoln to the grieving chorus of protests in today’s Black Lives Matter movement.
• Shelley Rotner & Gwen Agna’s True You: A Gender Journey (Clarion, 2022), an affirming photographic picture book of trans and gender nonconforming kids that leads with inclusivity, love, and empathy. Booklist starred review.
• Also from Shelley Rotner, Nature Spy Guide, which encourages kids to use their senses to safely explore the outdoors (Millbrook Press/Lerner, 2024); and Love is a Big Feeling (Holiday House, 2025), which captures the joy that arises when we embrace our feelings, our families, and our friends, in a warmhearted picture book.
• Emma Fick’s Border Crossings: A Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway (Harper Design, 2022), documenting the longest railway journey in the world—from Beijing, through Mongolia and Siberia to Moscow—in watercolor illustrations and hand-written text.
• Regina Linke’s The Oxherd Boy (Potter Gift, 2024), based on the hit webcomic of the same name, featuring a series of parables about a boy, an ox, and a rabbit who work to live compassionately and mindfully while engaged in the daily work of building their community.
• Also from Regina Linke, Big Enough, (Little Brown BFYR, 2025). From the creator of the adult gift book The Oxherd Boy comes this dazzling, gorgeously illustrated picture book about a little boy who learns he is big enough to do big things. Featured on the cover of the LBYR 2025 Winter Catalog.
• Lynn Curlee’s YA memoir The Other Pandemic: An AIDS Memoir, a deeply personal, illustrated account of coming of age during the gay liberation movement in New York City and living through the AIDS pandemic, losing multiple friends and his life partner (Charlesbridge Teen, 2023).
• Erica Simone Turnipseed’s Bigger Than Me, illustrated by Kara Bodegón-Hikino (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2023). Siblings Luna and Zion are feeling overwhelmed by the big words rushing at them: Homelessness. Pandemic. Inequality. Recession. Unemployment. They eventually discover the impact they can have when their community bands together. A picture book ode to how solidarity lifts everyone up.
• Borderlands Tarot by Enid Baxter Ryce and Luis Cámara (Running Press, 2024). The artistic, emotionally evocative, bilingual tarot deck and guide are rooted in the unique and magical natural world of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. The cards are hand-painted with natural inks and bursting with color.
• 108 Awesome Yoga Poses for Kids by Lauren and Brian Chaitoff, founders of YogiBeans, the leading children’s yoga and wellness brand (Page Street Kids, 2023). Designed to teach children how to practice popular yoga poses utilizing fun and engaging photographs with correct alignment, and child-friendly cues that help get children moving efficiently through the poses.
• Trespass: Stories of Homelessness, Love and Understanding, a relentlessly thought-provoking, brutally honest series of photo essays that dares us to confront our own biases as writer/photographer Kim Watson explores the lives of unhoused people in Los Angeles (Broadleaf Books, 2024).
• Ashley Wilda’s YA novel The Night Fox employs magical realism along with a mix of poetry and prose to tell the tale of a teen struggling with heartbreak and depression. She is sent to a remote mountain retreat to recover, and soon discovers that her surreal surroundings change every time she ventures out, challenging her reality. (Rocky Pond Books/Penguin Young Readers, 2023). Ashley’s second book with Rocky Pond, Cleave, will be published in 2026. The novel explores the complex relationship between an Arab-American girl and her absentee father, who she tries to please by pushing herself to become a champion rock climber.
• Stan Mack’s Real Life Funnies: The Collected Conceits, Delusions, and Hijinks of New Yorkers from 1974 to 1995, (Fantagraphics, 2024). This gigantic collection of the seminal comic strip that ran in the Village Voice includes collection includes a foreword by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and an afterword by Jeannette Walls (The Glass Castle).
• Also upcoming from Enid Baxter Ryce, Plant Magic At Home: A Complete Guide to Harnessing the Power of Nature from Rituals to DIYs (Running Press 2025); Magical Echoes of the Ancients (Red Wheel/Weiser 2026), an illustrated book of spells that read like lyrical poems, sourced from cultures around the world; and Grace Flows to Your Heart: 101 Spiritual Verses from Around the World (illustrated, Amber Lotus/Andrews McMeel 2026).
• Angel Tate’s picture I Rock My Hair: Pretty and Protected by the C.R.O.W.N. Act (Gnome Road Publishing, 2025), about a girl who realizes that although some people think that her natural hair stands out too much, it’s ok to rock her hair any way she wants to.
• Author/illustrator Katie Palazzola’s debut picture books will both be published by Neal Porter Books. The Great Frog (2026) is about a girl who invents a tall tale to assuage her little brother’s worries, only to have his innocent excitement grow to the point that she realizes she must tell him the truth; and Before and After (2027), a story about a father and young daughter wondering together, imaginatively exploring questions of past and future, and ultimately finding comfort in embracing uncertainty together.
• Who’s Watching Shorty? a memoir by Reshona Landfair—known as “Jane Doe” when she testified at R. Kelly’s trial, She was the 14-year-old-girl in the child pornography video that ultimately led to a sex-trafficking conviction and 30-year prison sentence for the R&B superstar. (Legacy Lit, 2025)
• Award-winning poet Crystal Simone Smith’s Common Sense (1776): Addressed to the Americans 0f (2026)—a striking work of erasure poetry for both Adult and YA readers that takes a critical look at the contradictions embedded in Thomas Paine’s essay “Common Sense,” a foundational text of American democracy, and its implications on our current political landscape (The Beacon Press, 2026).

Submission Guidelines

I only accept submissions through QueryManager.

• Please fill out the query form. If I want to read a complete manuscript or dummy, I will request it AFTER you have filled out the query form.
• If I request a file upload, please upload all manuscripts in Word, and graphics/illustrations as a PDF.
• If the PDF is too large to upload, please include a link where I can view your work.
• If you do not hear from me within three months you can assume that I am not interested in your work.

Guidelines & Details